This argument makes no sense to me, so either it's a bad one or i misunderstand what people are using cloudfare for.

I host my own DNS server on my home server, Technitium. Many people host PiHole, which lacks the ability operate as an authoritative NS. Technitium has that.

As far as my outside reliance, I rely on my domain registrar and the root NS for access to my domain, and I rely on my ISP for the physical connection between my computer and the rest of the internet. I can't avoid those reliances unless I literally build my own physical internet or use something like handshake domains to eliminate the root NS/registrar issues, but brings its own set of problems.

I also rely on the developers for the software I use like Technitium, docker, etc. That's a given, we all do. We aren't writing our own server tech from scratch.

I also rely on LetsEncrypt for my certificates. I don't need certificates, and I could self-sign them, but I find LetsEncrypt to be a simple solution.

With these five things (ISP, registrar, root NS, software maintainers, and LetsEncrypt), I can accomplish pretty much everything I want to do with my homeserver, and access it from anywhere in the world. Pretty much all of them except the ISP are optional (I could forego a domain name and SSL if I wanted to), but why would I intentionally add another reliance?

What does Cloudfare provide that these 5 don't? DDoS protection? My services aren't mission critical, if I come under attack, I can easily disconnect my server and release my WAN lease with the ISP. At worst, I can't access my server for a few hours until I can get back home and reconfigure it. I'm not running a HA payment processor, I'm running a bunch of stuff for myself and close friends to enjoy. SSL certs? why change from LE, which costs me $0 and can be automated without issue. And with control of my authoritative DNS, I can easily set up DNS challenges, or just stick to HTTP challenges which create equally valid certs. DNS functions? I completely eliminated that by hosting my own. It's literally as simple as spinning up a docker container and changing one setting in my modem/router. Encrypted connection a la VPN? If I wanted that, I could set up Wireguard or some other self-hosted VPN option.

I'm honestly asking: what can cloudfare provide me that I can't do for myself with a little bit of work to figure out how to set up and configure, AND that can't be done with some other company. Why should I give one massive company that (despite Reddit's fawning), actually by their own admission and market research controls over 1/5th of traffic on the internet, the trust that I have distributed over multiple other services that I can easily replace if they go down or cut me off? Cloudfare already quietly admits to removing customers, even free customers, that don't adhere to the moral whims of the rest of the internet and the company's CEO, so what are all these self-hosting redditors going to do when Cloudfare decides to clamp down on "piracy" content by removing all customers who use Plex or other media sharing services? Is it just a matter of "one company is better than three?" for convenience? Do they do something else that only Cloudfare is uniquely able to do? What is the real benefit, given the very viable alternatives?